Previous research has shown that low-literate users have difficulty using
hierarchical information architectures and that a list design showing all items
at once on a PC screen works best for search tasks. However, the limited screen
space on phones makes it impossible to show more than a few items at once on a
single screen. Does a hierarchical UI work better on a phone? In this study, we
compared the performance of non-literate users from Bangalore, India, on a search
task using a hierarchical UI (four levels deep) and a multi-page list that had
forty items across seven pages of a touch-screen phone. Our results show that
participants using the multi-page list perform better both in terms of time taken
and percent correct even when the list UI design requires them to browse through
multiple pages of items on the phone.